Ned Land
: PART ONE: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea
Captain Farragut was a good seaman, worthy of the frigate he commanded.
His vessel and he were one. He was the soul of it. On the question of
the monster there was no doubt in his mind, and he would not allow the
existence of the animal to be disputed on board. He believed in it, as
certain good women believe in the leviathan--by faith, not by reason.
The monster did exist, and he had sworn to rid the seas of it. Either
<
captain. There was no third course.
The officers on board shared the opinion of their chief. They were
ever chatting, discussing, and calculating the various chances of a
meeting, watching narrowly the vast surface of the ocean. More than
one took up his quarters voluntarily in the cross-trees, who would have
cursed such a berth under any other circumstances. As long as the sun
described its daily course, the rigging was crowded with sailors, whose
feet were burnt to such an extent by the heat of the deck as to render
it unbearable; still the Abraham Lincoln had not yet breasted the
suspected waters of the Pacific. As to the ship's company, they
desired nothing better than to meet the unicorn, to harpoon it, hoist
it on board, and despatch it. They watched the sea with eager
attention.
Besides, Captain Farragut had spoken of a certain sum of two thousand
dollars, set apart for whoever should first sight the monster, were he
cabin-boy, common seaman, or officer.
I leave you to judge how eyes were used on board the Abraham Lincoln.
For my own part I was not behind the others, and, left to no one my
share of daily observations. The frigate might have been called the
Argus, for a hundred reasons. Only one amongst us, Conseil, seemed to
protest by his indifference against the question which so interested us
all, and seemed to be out of keeping with the general enthusiasm on
board.
I have said that Captain Farragut had carefully provided his ship with
every apparatus for catching the gigantic cetacean. No whaler had ever
been better armed. We possessed every known engine, from the harpoon
thrown by the hand to the barbed arrows of the blunderbuss, and the
explosive balls of the duck-gun. On the forecastle lay the perfection
of a breech-loading gun, very thick at the breech, and very narrow in
the bore, the model of which had been in the Exhibition of 1867. This
precious weapon of American origin could throw with ease a conical
projectile of nine pounds to a mean distance of ten miles.
Thus the Abraham Lincoln wanted for no means of destruction; and, what
was better still she had on board Ned Land, the prince of harpooners.
Ned Land was a Canadian, with an uncommon quickness of hand, and who
knew no equal in his dangerous occupation. Skill, coolness, audacity,
and cunning he possessed in a superior degree, and it must be a cunning
whale to escape the stroke of his harpoon.
Ned Land was about forty years of age; he was a tall man (more than six
feet high), strongly built, grave and taciturn, occasionally violent,
and very passionate when contradicted. His person attracted attention,
but above all the boldness of his look, which gave a singular
expression to his face.
Who calls himself Canadian calls himself French; and, little
communicative as Ned Land was, I must admit that he took a certain
liking for me. My nationality drew him to me, no doubt. It was an
opportunity for him to talk, and for me to hear, that old language of
Rabelais, which is still in use in some Canadian provinces. The
harpooner's family was originally from Quebec, and was already a tribe
of hardy fishermen when this town belonged to France.
Little by little, Ned Land acquired a taste for chatting, and I loved
to hear the recital of his adventures in the polar seas. He related
his fishing, and his combats, with natural poetry of expression; his
recital took the form of an epic poem, and I seemed to be listening to
a Canadian Homer singing the Iliad of the regions of the North.
I am portraying this hardy companion as I really knew him. We are old
friends now, united in that unchangeable friendship which is born and
cemented amidst extreme dangers. Ah, brave Ned! I ask no more than to
live a hundred years longer, that I may have more time to dwell the
longer on your memory.
Now, what was Ned Land's opinion upon the question of the marine
monster? I must admit that he did not believe in the unicorn, and was
the only one on board who did not share that universal conviction. He
even avoided the subject, which I one day thought it my duty to press
upon him. One magnificent evening, the 30th July (that is to say,
three weeks after our departure), the frigate was abreast of Cape
Blanc, thirty miles to leeward of the coast of Patagonia. We had
crossed the tropic of Capricorn, and the Straits of Magellan opened
less than seven hundred miles to the south. Before eight days were
over the Abraham Lincoln would be ploughing the waters of the Pacific.
Seated on the poop, Ned Land and I were chatting of one thing and
another as we looked at this mysterious sea, whose great depths had up
to this time been inaccessible to the eye of man. I naturally led up
the conversation to the giant unicorn, and examined the various chances
of success or failure of the expedition. But, seeing that Ned Land let
me speak without saying too much himself, I pressed him more closely.
"Well, Ned," said I, "is it possible that you are not convinced of the
existence of this cetacean that we are following? Have you any
particular reason for being so incredulous?"
The harpooner looked at me fixedly for some moments before answering,
struck his broad forehead with his hand (a habit of his), as if to
collect himself, and said at last, "Perhaps I have, Mr. Aronnax."
"But, Ned, you, a whaler by profession, familiarised with all the great
marine mammalia--YOU ought to be the last to doubt under such
circumstances!"
"That is just what deceives you, Professor," replied Ned. "As a whaler
I have followed many a cetacean, harpooned a great number, and killed
several; but, however strong or well-armed they may have been, neither
their tails nor their weapons would have been able even to scratch the
iron plates of a steamer."
"But, Ned, they tell of ships which the teeth of the narwhal have
pierced through and through."
"Wooden ships--that is possible," replied the Canadian, "but I have
never seen it done; and, until further proof, I deny that whales,
cetaceans, or sea-unicorns could ever produce the effect you describe."
"Well, Ned, I repeat it with a conviction resting on the logic of
facts. I believe in the existence of a mammal power fully organised,
belonging to the branch of vertebrata, like the whales, the cachalots,
or the dolphins, and furnished with a horn of defence of great
penetrating power."
"Hum!" said the harpooner, shaking his head with the air of a man who
would not be convinced.
"Notice one thing, my worthy Canadian," I resumed. "If such an animal
is in existence, if it inhabits the depths of the ocean, if it
frequents the strata lying miles below the surface of the water, it
must necessarily possess an organisation the strength of which would
defy all comparison."
"And why this powerful organisation?" demanded Ned.
"Because it requires incalculable strength to keep one's self in these
strata and resist their pressure. Listen to me. Let us admit that the
pressure of the atmosphere is represented by the weight of a column of
water thirty-two feet high. In reality the column of water would be
shorter, as we are speaking of sea water, the density of which is
greater than that of fresh water. Very well, when you dive, Ned, as
many times 32 feet of water as there are above you, so many times does
your body bear a pressure equal to that of the atmosphere, that is to
say, 15 lb. for each square inch of its surface. It follows, then,
that at 320 feet this pressure equals that of 10 atmospheres, of 100
atmospheres at 3,200 feet, and of 1,000 atmospheres at 32,000 feet,
that is, about 6 miles; which is equivalent to saying that if you could
attain this depth in the ocean, each square three-eighths of an inch of
the surface of your body would bear a pressure of 5,600 lb. Ah! my
brave Ned, do you know how many square inches you carry on the surface
of your body?"
"I have no idea, Mr. Aronnax."
"About 6,500; and as in reality the atmospheric pressure is about 15
lb. to the square inch, your 6,500 square inches bear at this moment a
pressure of 97,500 lb."
"Without my perceiving it?"
"Without your perceiving it. And if you are not crushed by such a
pressure, it is because the air penetrates the interior of your body
with equal pressure. Hence perfect equilibrium between the interior
and exterior pressure, which thus neutralise each other, and which
allows you to bear it without inconvenience. But in the water it is
another thing."
"Yes, I understand," replied Ned, becoming more attentive; "because the
water surrounds me, but does not penetrate."
"Precisely, Ned: so that at 32 feet beneath the surface of the sea you
would undergo a pressure of 97,500 lb.; at 320 feet, ten times that
pressure; at 3,200 feet, a hundred times that pressure; lastly, at
32,000 feet, a thousand times that pressure would be 97,500,000
lb.--that is to say, that you would be flattened as if you had been
drawn from the plates of a hydraulic machine!"
"The devil!" exclaimed Ned.
"Very well, my worthy harpooner, if some vertebrate, several hundred
yards long, and large in proportion, can maintain itself in such
depths--of those whose surface is represented by millions of square
inches, that is by tens of millions of pounds, we must estimate the
pressure they undergo. Consider, then, what must be the resistance of
their bony structure, and the strength of their organisation to
withstand such pressure!"
"Why!" exclaimed Ned Land, "they must be made of iron plates eight
inches thick, like the armoured frigates."
"As you say, Ned. And think what destruction such a mass would cause,
if hurled with the speed of an express train against the hull of a
vessel."
"Yes--certainly--perhaps," replied the Canadian, shaken by these
figures, but not yet willing to give in.
"Well, have I convinced you?"
"You have convinced me of one thing, sir, which is that, if such
animals do exist at the bottom of the seas, they must necessarily be as
strong as you say."
"But if they do not exist, mine obstinate harpooner, how explain the
accident to the Scotia?"
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